The Romans stay... but how?

Okay, another poll :) Let's settle some matters, because even though I know we're leaving Romans for later, this decision may affect the way the map is made, and the map is being done right now...

So, the overall consensus is that the Romans stay... but how? Given all the hardcoded conditions, I believe there are four combinations possible:

1) Strong senate + 3 weak: Strong Senate, other factions weakened.
2) 3 strong + weak senate: The vanilla way: weak senate, three strong roman factions
3) 2 strong + weak senate + 1 weak: Two strong roman factions, weak senate, weak third faction (the only way to have two effective romans instead of three)
4) All weak: all roman factions, including senate, equal. This can't be called 'all strong' because distributing roman strength equally in four would mean equal weakening of all factions.

There are other combinations, but I think these four are the only ones that make playing Romans possible. If you have another idea, post.

My vote goes for 3), for reasons I've explained many times already. I'm playing the vanilla setup again now, and I really hate it that I can't expand my Julii anywhere I want, because Greece and Illiria is already taken by Brutii. We would need to decide what to do with the third faction (another poll? ;), but I strongly believe this would be the best way. While the strong Senate version doesn't work well with AI...
But I'll go with whatever the consensus will be.

I'd opt for 3, but which faction would be weaker?

Vanilla conditions. :charge:

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Originally Posted by eadingas

I'm playing the vanilla setup again now, and I really hate it that I can't expand my Julii anywhere I want, because Greece and Illiria is already taken by Brutii.

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All is correct. As in real life. You cannot have everything you want, somebody else is holding it yet. To have it you must start the war. Total war. ~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by Dead Moroz

Vanilla conditions. :charge:


All is correct. As in real life. You cannot have everything you want, somebody else is holding it yet. To have it you must start the war. Total war. ~:smoking:

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But only Romans have it this way. If it were any other faction, I'd simply start a war and get over it. If I were playing any other faction, I'd simply start a war against Rome and get over it. But as other Romans, I'm restricted in my expansion by the silly 3 Romans setup.

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I'm playing the vanilla setup again now, and I really hate it that I can't expand my Julii anywhere I want, because Greece and Illiria is already taken by Brutii. We would need to decide what to do with the third faction (another poll? ;), but I strongly believe this would be the best way. While the strong Senate version doesn't work well with AI...
But I'll go with whatever the consensus will be.

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I agree with Moroz here , Is not that you can everything , the Vanilla conditions are to respect the real expansion domains , historically the triumvirate had those spheres of influence so is better to keep them as they are , add this condition , that you forgot to add.... so my answer too is don't change anything......

Prom: option no. 2 is 'don't change anything'.
Historically, the triumvirate is 200 years after the game starts, and frankly the history could go in any way you can imagine - it could've been duumvirate, quatrumvirate, etc. I don't see how it should influence the early Republican game. There is nothing in history to support the division in three in 270 BC.
And the Romans are already restricted in their game by many things, the Senate, the alliances, the Civil War, the marian reforms etc. Why would you restrict them further?

strong + weak Senate

is number two , anyway the triumvirate will come and is logical that 3 factons subdivide conquests if u want to conquest the rest of the world u have to start the civil war otherwise the civil war won't start if u already conquered everything.....

Why is it even necessary to vote on this now? I thought your setup added one province to Italy - wouldn't that be easy to add later? As soon as some balance is made in the mod between an aggressive Rome and the current castrated setup, couldn't we just work from there?

As it stands now, I have no basis to make a decision from.

I've only seen...

1. The vanilla Roman setup where they expand across the map like a horde of locusts.

2. The current setup where the Roman faction does nothing.

Well, this is only a preliminary opinion poll... which I can use to further enforce my opinion on others ~;) heh. Or rather, it could start a discussion about what to do about Romans, since obviously neither leaving them as they were nor changes made recently, works 100% satisfying.

Fair enough. ~:)

Well, everyone knows my opinion then, we need more aggressive Romans than what we have now, but not something on the level of vanilla RTW. I'm pretty open as to how we achieve that.

One caveat though; if we do include the Italian Allies as a third, weak faction, they shouldn't have unique units, but the standard Roman lineup.

Romans should be aggressive... very aggressive. That's why they created one of the biggest empires in history. The way they made in vanilla version is perfect. We just need to tweak other factions to make them fight against Rome more successfully.

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Originally Posted by Dead Moroz

Romans should be aggressive... very aggressive. That's why they created one of the biggest empires in history. The way they made in vanilla version is perfect. We just need to tweak other factions to make them fight against Rome more successfully.

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Well, that works too. I suppose my concerns with the vanilla RTW setup was the rate of Roman expansion.

Egypt needs other foea asis now in every campaign I made I have to face an uberpumped Egypt wich is everwinning versus the other close factions.....

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Originally Posted by PROMETHEUS

Egypt needs other foea asis now in every campaign I made I have to face an uberpumped Egypt wich is everwinning versus the other close factions.....

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Are you playing EB Alpha 0.2?

No I want to play but I want to have it finished mapo befoure and i couldn?t install the second version ARgggg!!!!! It said I have no space but anyway there is no way to make a second install the cd always spots my already installed version......

If you have no disk space that is a problem.

But, regarding the rest, you are making some kind of mistake. Skip the Autorun feature and use explore to open the setup program. After that you just need to tell the setup prog to install to a new directory. Finito...

I say just have the Senate faction, and get rid of the rest of the Romans. More room for the better factions. ~D

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Romans should be aggressive... very aggressive. That's why they created one of the biggest empires in history. The way they made in vanilla version is perfect.

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I disagree strongly. Rember, the Romans weren't like Alexander. They took a very very long time to conquer their terrotories. It took hundreds of years for them to reach their peak.

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Originally Posted by Steppe Merc

I disagree strongly. Rember, the Romans weren't like Alexander. They took a very very long time to conquer their terrotories. It took hundreds of years for them to reach their peak.

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Yes, yes, that's why I told we need to make other factions stronger and more active. I don't think that Romans expanded slowly just because they were... very peaceful. They built their empire long time because they had to deal with serious opponents. And that we should simulate in game - not weakened Romans, but strong "barbarians".

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Originally Posted by Steppe Merc

I say just have the Senate faction, and get rid of the rest of the Romans. More room for the better factions. ~D

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Now, now, Steppe!!! Let's not get in to this subject again, ok? :no:

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Originally Posted by Dead Moroz

Yes, yes, that's why I told we need to make other factions stronger and more active. I don't think that Romans expanded slowly just because they were... very peaceful. They built their empire long time because they had to deal with serious opponents. And that we should simulate in game - not weakened Romans, but strong "barbarians".

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Agreed that the problem are the weaker "barbarians", not the Romans.

Well, then, won't two Roman factions be stronger than three?

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Originally Posted by eadingas

Well, then, won't two Roman factions be stronger than three?

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How? Isn't it just illogical?

You get the resources divided in two, not three. You get the world divided between two, not three. You get Italy divided between two, not three. Two factions have more possibilities of expansion than three. It will take longer to trigger civil war for two factions than three. Etc.

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Originally Posted by eadingas

You get the resources divided in two, not three. You get the world divided between two, not three. You get Italy divided between two, not three. Two factions have more possibilities of expansion than three. It will take longer to trigger civil war for two factions than three. Etc.

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Disagree. Especially about civil war.

And this system of Roman factions is related more to political simulation than to conquests. There is only one faction enough to simulate Roman conquest. The only purpose of making 4 Roman factions instead of one is to simulate political struggle within Roman society. All Roman factions must have equal conditions in start to make this system less predictable and to allow it to go it's own way in every new game.

I think we were playing a different game... Three factions is less predictable system than two? But with three, you always get the same game: Bruttii go east, Scipii go south, Julii go north... always the same setup... With two, I've seen Scipii AI forget Carthage and go straight for Macedon, or Julii forget Gauls and go straight for Illiria, Pannonia and Thracia. How's that for unpredictability?
And as for historical reality, which was, IIRC, one of the points of this mod, show me what political struggle of the Republic era is simulated by dividing it in three instead of two?

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Originally Posted by eadingas

And as for historical reality, which was, IIRC, one of the points of this mod, show me what political struggle of the Republic era is simulated by dividing it in three instead of two?

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Triumvirate? :idea2:

If you play as one of Romans, isn't it more interesting to fight with 2 real opponents for influence and then Emperor title than just gain 50 provinces and conquer Rome?

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Originally Posted by Dead Moroz

Triumvirate? :idea2:

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Right. Which didn't occur until 60 BC, which is well over anyone usually reaches in RTW, and which wasn't any 'struggle of power' until Crassus died in Carrhae, when it's become a Civil War between TWO opponents, Caesar and Pompey.
In fact, the first Triumvirate is EXACTLY an example of 2+1 setup - two strong factions (Caesar and Pompeius) and one weak, just to balance them out (Crassus).
Or do you mean second Triumvirate, which was even later and in which Lepidus had even less power? The Triumvirates were never made of three EQUAL men, it was always two strong and third weak in the balance.

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If you play as one of Romans, isn't it more interesting to fight with 2 real opponents for influence and then Emperor title than just gain 50 provinces and conquer Rome?

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Frankly, to me, it's more interesting to be able to fight the Greeks and Macedons before the Bruttii arrive and make it impossible without launching Civil War... I haven't yet really seen AI Romans being any threat to me except for in Italy where they always keep their strongest armies. The Civil War was usually just a bothersome few turns delay in my conquests. And it will be just the same with third faction weakened to just Italian provinces: they will attack your capital with all they have and you have to fight them anyway, so no change there.

Setting the map to vanilla conditions for the Romans is not the only way to get them to perform how we like. Since they aren't doing so in 0.2 we need to tweak things before resetting them for 0.3. We have plenty of time to do so and learn exactly how to manipulate the AI before we release a public version. Reverting to vanilla setup should be our last resort, a sign of giving up.

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Now, now, Steppe!!! Let's not get in to this subject again, ok?

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Sorry. My bad. :embarassed:

In that case, I'd say all weak. Even when we bump up the rest of the factions, I still think that the Romans should be slightly weaker than they are now.